PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The final pathway into the Masters is through San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, where the winner if not already eligible goes straight to Augusta National.
The exception is S.H. Kim, who goes straight home to South Korea regardless of the outcome.
Kim, who turns 28 in September, finished eighth on the Korn Ferry Tour points list in 2025 to earn his PGA Tour card for the second time. But mandatory military service in South Korea is looming, and he was given a 90-day travel extension at the start of the year.
That gives him until the Texas Open on April 2-5 before it expires. Kim, who missed the cut at The Players Championship, has played every week he has been eligible. His best results were at the start of the year: a tie for 13th in the Sony Open and a tie for 18th at The American Express.
“I’m playing until Valero,” he said through a translator. “Anything after that is a lot of factors going into play. I might come back again this year. First I have to go back to Korea.”
Giving up two years in their prime has never been easy on players. Sangmoon Bae went from the Presidents Cup in 2015 to the military. He hasn’t been the same. Ditto for Seung-yul Noh, whose return from his conscription was about the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PGA Tour is working on a plan to help. Tour officials are in the process of finalizing an arrangement where Kim can get a medical extension and still play at home on the Korea PGA circuit during the weeks he wouldn’t be eligible on the PGA Tour (majors and signature events).
The idea is to keep him sharp for the end of September to be ready for the Asian Games, held every four years, and now increasingly important to South Koreans. Gold medal winners in the Asian Games — individual or team — are exempt from military service.
Any medal at the Olympics comes with an exemption, which is why Tom Kim was so crushed when he fell four shots short of a shot at the bronze at the 2024 Paris Games.
Professionals played the Asian Games for the first time in 2023 (it was delayed one year by the pandemic). Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim competed with two amateurs and South Korea won the team gold by 25 shots.
“I was still scared as [expletive],” Si Woo Kim said with a laugh last week. He said the world ranking determined who played the last time.
Tom Kim and S.H. Kim currently are the leading South Koreans in the world ranking among those still facing conscription. S.H. said it hasn’t been decided who will play, only that he hopes to part of that team. A gold medal is all that can bring him back to the PGA Tour in the fall.
